The Worst Hard Time - by Timothy Egan (Paperback)

About the Book

Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones in the darkest years of the Depression.

Book Synopsis

This National Book Award-winning story, a tour de force of historical reportage and narrative nonfiction, rescues an iconic chapter of American history--the Dust Bowl that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression--from the shadows.

Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, Egan does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes, "the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgency and respect" (New York Times).

In an era that promises ever-greater natural disasters, The Worst Hard Time is "arguably the best nonfiction book yet" (Austin Statesman Journal) on the greatest environmental disaster ever to be visited upon our land and a powerful cautionary tale about the dangers of trifling with nature.

This unforgettable chronicle of the Dirty Thirties reveals:

• American History: The untold story of the families who stayed behind in the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, facing crop failure, dust pneumonia, and the death of loved ones.
• Black Blizzards: A vivid depiction of the terrifying dust storms that boiled up into the sky, rolled like mountains, and penetrated every aspect of life, turning day into night.
• The Great Depression: An intimate look at human resilience during one of the nation's darkest decades, focusing on the stoic men and women who endured an unprecedented catastrophe.
• Environmental Disaster: A powerful, cautionary tale that explores how the greatest grassland in the world was turned inside out, resulting in an ecological collapse that still holds lessons today.

Review Quotes

[A] fierce, humane account of the dreams and extremes that crashed head on during the nearly decade-long calamity of the Dust Bowl. The New York Times

[A] vivid and gritty piece of forgotten history.

USA Today

"The Worst Hard Time" provides a sobering, gripping account of a disaster whose wounds are still not fully healed today.

Boston Globe

The Worst Hard Time is a haunting work of narrative nonfiction.

The Baltimore Sun

Egan has admirably captured a part of our American experience that should not be forgotten.

The San Francisco Chronicle

Egan is a passionate and accomplished writer...Read this for history, not inspiration or entertainment.

The Denver Post

Egan's account of the Dust Bowl era is a final, terrible rebuke to the policies of America's dying days of frontier expansion.

The Seattle Times

THE WORST HARD TIME is a flat-out masterpiece of historical reportage.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer